A Break from Everything
by Jmags-WriterofAwesomeness
Summary: It's a year and a half after the gang graduated from Hollywood Arts and Cat and Robbie have gone their separate ways. Different colleges, completely different lives, their friendship just a past memory. But when a shivering, soaked, traumatized Cat knocks on Robbie's door on a late December night, their lives are turned completely on their heads. Cabbie, rated M for mature themes.
1. Chapter 1

_Hey everyone. So um...this is my first time writing fanfiction in a while, so I apologize if my writing is a bit rusty. I'm temporarily coming out of retirement because I started watching Victorious episodes one day and I realized that I wanted to write again. And since I'm hopelessly stuck on my original story and I couldn't think of anything to add to my existing fanfictions...I decided to start a new one. And for those of you who have known my style of writing for a while...this is a drastic change from what I used to write. It takes place in the Victorious world but it is also a bit AU as well. Yes, there will be Cabbie fluff, but it'll be more emotional and dark than the majority of my other stories were. And for those of you who are emotionally triggered by stories about sexual assault, you may not want to read this. This is my first M-rated story, too, and there is good reason for why it is rated that way. Hope you enjoy it despite the dark stuff!_

* * *

**Narrator's POV**

"Everyone makes mistakes, Cat, and the majority of them are forgivable. It's what we learn from them that counts."

It was something her father used to say to her every time she got herself into some sort of trouble. His soothing words comforted her when she spilled grape juice on her mom's new sofa when she was seven years old, they echoed in her head when she accidentally waxed her friend Jade's eyebrows off her junior year of high school, and they were certainly seared into her brain now. Only this time, she just couldn't accept her father's words. Not with a mistake as fatal and life-altering as this one.

If she just hadn't gone to that frat party with him, she wouldn't be in the position that she is right now: dripping wet, quaking with fear, wandering aimlessly around a college campus that wasn't her own. If she had just agreed to go see that new rom-com with her best friend Molly instead of focusing so much on fitting in someplace where she knew she didn't quite belong, her life wouldn't currently be crumbling around her. There were so many other paths that she could've taken in her life that fateful day that she couldn't see how she could possibly forgive herself for making all the wrong decisions.

This mistake wasn't forgivable; it was a constant spiral downwards into a dark abyss of no return. She couldn't see the light, the walls of the abyss seemed impossible to surpass, and she couldn't get herself out no matter how much she tried. And every attempt she made to heal, to move on and forget the terrible ordeal ever happened, just made things such much worse.

How could she learn from her blunder if she was so hopelessly, completely stuck like this?

Of course she was learning _valuable_ lessons from being in this predicament, but there was one trap that the poor, selfless young woman could not avoid: self-blame.

She was the victim. And it wasn't her fault.

* * *

_"Oh my god, Cat, that dress looks so great on you!"_

_Cat turned around to pose for her sorority sisters, the ones who had convinced her to come to the party with them, showing off a tightly-fitted purple dress that accentuated every nook, cranny, and curve on her body. The fabric ended just above the kneecaps- not too short but just short enough to scream "sexy and confident." Her toned, tan legs were further showcased by a pair of purple sparkly heels. She looked at the awed faces in front of her and made her decision: she was definitely buying this dress, no matter how many months of work study it took to pay her father back for it._

_A light shade of red entered her cheeks and she giggled. "Thanks! Do you think Tyler will like it?"_

_Serene, the leader of the Phi Beta Kappa sorority house, smiled brightly and nodded in agreement. "Kitty, when he sees you in this dress tonight, he won't be able to take his eyes or his hands-" She winked coyly after the word hands "-off of you."_

_The nickname Serene had given her when she first joined the sorority last year tugged on a long-forgotten heart string as she briefly remembered a time when someone else used to call her that._

_"Yeah Cat, you look super hot!" a perky brunette named Kathy chirped from Serene's side._

_The other girl, most of them dressed in light, cheery colors, started to chatter in their excitement until Serene stopped them with a stern look. "Now let's get you out of that dress and into the nail salon so we can fix those disastrous cuticles of yours."_

_She started to shoo Cat back to her dressing room but paused when she saw that Cat's smile had disappeared. "I'm kidding, silly!" she exclaimed, touching Cat's arm gently. "Learn to take a joke."_

_Cat sighed and walked back to her dressing room, the excitement about the new dress suddenly gone like it had vanished into thin air. Sure, she couldn't always understand jokes because she thought of everything so literally, but even she could tell that Serene was just being mean. And unfortunately, this was far from the first time her supposed "role model" had treated her in this manner._

_She slipped out of the dress, hung it back on the hangar that it was on when she had first found it in the store, and looked at herself in the mirror. She saw her petite yet mature figure in a blue, incredibly lacy leopard print push-up bra (it must've made her boobs look at least two sizes larger than usual) and a thin matching thong. Of course she always grimaced at the usual things girls complain about when they look in a mirror- the thighs that should be thinner than they are, the stomach that just isn't toned enough, and love handles that just wouldn't go away- but this time was a bit different._

_The whole mature, popular girl act that being a successful sorority entailed, pretending to be a girl who gossiped about others behind their backs and who went to parties just to get wasted enough not to remember the good time she had while she was there..._

_It just wasn't her. Or who she used to be, anyway._

* * *

_Later on that night, she sat with the same group of girls (albeit a bit smaller than it was at the mall) on black leather couches with a cup of god-knows-what in her hand. Was is vodka? Tequila? Or was it that fancy fruit punch the frat boys had put in a glass bowl and ladled out in cups for the other partiers to drink? She could never tell; for some reason, it all seemed to taste the same to her. Plus, this was something Tyler, her boyfriend of two months, had given her shortly after they arrived at the party. He said it would help her loosen up a bit. How could she say no to someone who cared for her partying experience like that? By now he knew what made her stubborn and uptight and what made her relax and have a good time. He just understood her so well...well, the kind of girl she was pretending to be, at least._

_He was traveling back and forth between his friends and Cat, who was dancing and talking eagerly to her girls as Tyler kept refilling her cup with alcohol. It wasn't long before Cat started to get woozy and disoriented. Their faces became blurred in her mind and she laughed uncontrollably at everything they said. Matter of fact, it probably wouldn't have mattered what the conversation was about because by now all of the girls had had enough alcohol to last them the whole night._

_As boyfriend after boyfriend came to retrieve their partners to grind, make-out, and hook up with them, Tyler snuck up behind Cat and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Hey baby," he murmured, planting a couple of gentle kisses on the side of her neck. "Care to go someplace a little more quiet for a bit?"_

_Cat couldn't quite understand what he was saying, but it was Tyler, for crying out loud. He was probably saying something that would normally make her feel on top of the world. "Sureeeee" She dragged the word out and kissed him forcibly on the lips. "Lesgo make some memoriiies."_

_He smiled and took her hand, leading her through the masses of gyrating, boisterous students with full drinks in their hands. At this point, the chaos and the bright lights were confusing her and she stumbled a bit on the stairs, but Tyler helped her navigate the wooden steps, eventually picking her up and carrying her to a small bedroom when he realized that she wasn't able to walk by herself._

_It was very dark in the room when Tyler plopped her down on the queen-sized bed. She laughed vibrantly at this. "Tylerrrr, why 'sit so dark in here?"_

_Although the majority of her senses were not so perceptive at the time, her ears still heard things loud and clear: the scuffling of multiple pairs of shoes, not just of Tyler's black high tops._

_They weren't alone in the room._

_Before Cat's fuzzy brain had the chance to make sense of any of this, two guys grabbed her arms and another planted his hands firmly on her waist, pinning her to the bed. She squeaked in surprise and kicked her feet wildly, causing another guy to catch them in the air and smash them violently against the bed frame. Then, she felt a pair of hands slipping underneath her dress and she continue to squirm, trying to release herself from her assailants' grasp._

_"Let me go! Please! Don't do this!" she screamed in fear, only to be punished with a collective, menacing laugh and a strong punch to her cheek. Because one of the guys was wearing a spiky metal ring, it cut deep into her chin and dug its way to the side of her nose, making her shriek in pain. _

_"Shaddup, whore, you ain't getting out of this no matter how hard you try!" a guy whose voice sounded vaguely familiar chortled, and Cat soon found another covering her mouth. She tried licking the guy's hand and squirming some more but to no avail: soon, the thong was off and her dress was rolled up to her waist, leaving the bottom half of her completely vulnerabl, making her tremble with fear. The deep gash on her cheek started bleeding heavily, eventually dripping down the side of her face to match the color of her hair below._

_An intense ripple of pain seized her body as the gang of five boys, one by one, penetrated her. Whenever something inhibited the guy into getting what he wanted from her, he would insult her and a thick bunch of her hair would get yanked hard. The tears streamed down her face, the salt water and her mascara pooling with the blood below as the pain worsened the more they abused her body. The torture seemed endless._

_When the last guy finished up (he actually didn't want to violate her, so the leader made him penetrate her with a beer bottle instead of with his dick), they let go of her and rolled her dress down. The thong, however, was picked up by one of the guys and shoved into his pant pocket. "Hope you had a good time at the party, Cat," he sneered. "See you around." They slowly exited the room, leaving Cat's bruised, exhausted body on the bed._

_The last thing that Cat remembered before blacking out that night was the identity of the last guy that spoke before leaving the room._

_And from that moment on, Tyler's bitingly sarcastic words would haunt her every night in her sleep._

* * *

After sitting behind the wheel of her car and crying for a bit, Cat wiped the tears from her face and crawled out the door, pushing it weakly shut behind her. It was one in the morning on a Sunday night and she could still hear drunk kids returning from parties yelling obscenities to the sky around her, though they were pretty far away. Despite that, she was comforted by the fact that people were still up, out and about- hopefully she could find someone sober to help her before the sun rose.

"Hello?!" she started shouting, pulling a picture up on her PearPhone and holding it up in the air. "Can someone help me? Does anyone know this guy? Anyone?"

She wandered around the unfamiliar campus for about an hour or so, yelling the same thing every few minutes or so. It started raining a couple of minutes into her trek, making her shiver in her tank top and jean capris. Finally, a girl sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette noticed Cat and quickly figured out that she didn't go to her school. "Hey you! Redhead!"

Startled, Cat turned around and saw the girl sitting on the bench. Jet-black hair tickled the sides of her chin and framed her face nicely as she took another puff of her cigarette, the smoke curling up towards the clear night sky. "What are you yammering about so late at night? Are you lost or something?"

Cat's face flushed slightly. "I'm sorry, I've never been here before. I'm looking for someone."

Her companion snuffed out her cigarette and chuckled. "Well, good luck with that. This campus is so big that you're better off finding a needle in a haystack."

"Haystacks have needles in them?" Cat asked, looking confused. "What does that have to do with me finding Robbie?"

Exasperated already with Cat, the girl (probably a senior) rolled her eyes. "No, you dummy, it's just a say-" She stopped abruptly mid-sentence. "Wait a second...kid, I may be able to help you out. I actually do know a guy named Robbie. He lives in the same building as me over there."

She pointed with black acrylic nails in front of her to a six-floor stone building with a miniature clock tower in the middle of it. This fact renewed a sense of hope in Cat and she squealed happily. "Oh my gosh, really? Does he look like this?"

The redhead, now drenched because of the pouring rain, shielded her phone as she showed the girl without a name a picture of Robbie that she had taken last year at his graduation party; he was sitting happily with Rex on a chair, laughing at a joke someone had told him. It was one of her favorite pictures of him because for the first time in his life, it looked like he was truly happy. "Yeah, I know that guy!" the girl exclaimed. "Tall, lanky nerd that is part of the theatre society here. He lives on my floor."

Groaning a bit as she stood up, the girl (who Cat later found out was named Amanda) slipped something into Cat's hand. "This is my room key. Use it to get into the building. Then, when you see Robbie, give it to him and he'll know what to do with it. Got it?"

"Got it!" Cat cried out, jumping up and down a bit. "Thanks!" She quickly hugged the stranger before racing off into the direction of the building.

The strategy worked. Because the person checking people into the dorm was taking a bathroom break, she was able to slip in and travel up six flights of stairs to reach the third floor- Robbie's floor. After wandering down a hallway or two with no luck, she finally took a right turn and stumbled across Robbie's dorm room, Room 319.

It took her a couple of minutes to gain her composure before knocking lightly on his door. She suddenly became incredibly nervous to the point where she started shaking violently- what if he was disgusted by the sight of seeing her again after such a long time? After all, she was the one who started ignoring his text messages and calls in the first place. Or worse yet, what if he didn't recognize her at all? Given how close of friends they were all the way through elementary, middle, and high school, that would break her heart into a million pieces.

She braced herself for his reaction when he opened the door. She grimaced internally at first because she noticed how groggy he was- her knocking must've woke him up from a deep slumber. But after that, she was astounded at what she saw in front of her. The man that stood in front of her was not the boy she had known all of her life.

Robbie, dressed in a white t-shirt and grey boxers, yawned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he opened the door. "Mitch, seriously? This is the second time this has happened today..." His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open in shock as he realized that it wasn't Mitch standing in front of him...the dripping, shaking feminine figure was a reminder of his past. A past he had hoped to forget and let it stay forgotten.

_There's no way...I must be dreaming. How...why is she here?_

In that moment, he could only get four words out of his dumbfounded mouth: "Oh my god...Cat?"

* * *

_So that's the beginning. For those of you who may have been confused, I write flashbacks in Italics. I got the inspiration for this story after reading a horrific article about gang-rape at University of (West?) Virginia and the disappearance of Hannah Graham. It disgusted and infuriated me at the same time so I decided to incorporate the theme into this story. And the worst part is that the encounter I read involved more guys and there was more blood and violence involved than what I just described. It's absolutely awful. For those of you wondering why my writing style has changed so much, look at my profile page under "EDIT." College has changed me in a lot of ways, so much that I don't know if I could ever write again the way I used to write. Feel free to PM me if you would like to catch up a bit! And reviews are always welcome, of course lol._


	2. Chapter 2

_So glad to see that readers are excited for what's to come! I will warn you ahead of time though...the interactions between them for the next few (don't know how many yet) chapters aren't going to be filled with sunshine, rainbows, and puppies. Robbie is not going to accept Cat bcl into his life right away and the reason for that is explained in this chapter. As close as friends they used to be, that is not the case anymore. I'm so proud of myself- I wrote and edited this whole chapter in less than 24 hours! :D Enjoy._

* * *

They stood there for what seemed like forever, with Robbie gawking at her sudden reappearance into his life and Cat shyly looking down at her shoes.

"Can I come in?" Cat finally said after a couple of seconds, her voice barely above a whisper.

Robbie blinked, still in a mild state of shock. "Uh, sure, I guess...come in."

She scurried into Robbie's room, jumping a bit at the door clicking shut behind her. As she hung her pale green Chanel purse on the coat rack to her right just behind the door, she took a peek at her surroundings. It was a cozy little room with two twin beds against walls opposite of each other, each facing the same direction as the other, and two desks resting at the ends of those beds. In other circumstances, this would've made Cat laugh; it was like they were twins! One bed was messy, papers and clothes scattered across a dark red comforter with thin, navy blue stripes. The other was a little higher off the ground, nicely made with a Galaxy Wars-themed blanket covering it. That combined with the sci-fi posters all over the walls, the Hollywood Arts mementos and pictures with others wearing sweatshirts saying "UC Berkeley" in bold print sitting in a row on his desk, and the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling made it obvious to Cat that this was Robbie's side of the room.

"So Cat..." Robbie awkwardly walked to a windowsill near his roommate's desk and leaned against it. "How have you been?" Judging from her appearance, intuition told him that something had happened, but he had no idea how to approach her about it.

She wanted to tell him everything that happened to her, from the moment she stepped into that sorority house last year to the moment she decided to come find him. The memories bounced around in a state of turmoil in her brain, yearning to be released. She opened her mouth to tell him but nothing came out. It was too soon, her instincts told her. And besides, she wasn't quite ready to re-live the awfulness of the past six months yet.

"Um...I've been okay." Robbie watched as Cat picked up a picture of the six old high school pals- Tori, Andre, Jade, Beck, Cat, and Robbie- smiling and huddled together on the sands of Huntington Beach. He remembered that day quite well; it was taken on the nicest day of their senior week vacation. Frolicking in the waves and playing games with his friends without a care in the world was one of the moments he refused to shut away with the rest of his past life. The petite redhead brushed some dust off the glass and put it back in its rightful place. "How 'bout you?"

Robbie shrugged, crossing his arms in front of his chest. After going for so long without talking, how was he supposed to respond to that without turning the past year or so into a novel? "I've been good. College life has treated me well. A hell of a lot better than high school ever did."

An awkward silence filled the room again, the two former friends at a loss for words. Eventually, Robbie couldn't take it anymore. "Okay Cat, why are you really here?" he asked, trying hard to keep a year of pent-up hurt and frustration out of his tone.

Cat remained quiet, lifting herself gently to sit on an open area of Robbie's desk. She squeaked as papers and textbooks shuffled slightly behind her, but it was clear to Robbie that she wasn't ready to talk.

He exhaled heavily and walked over to his desk, leaning on the side opposite of where Cat was sitting. "We had a great time together over the summer, shared heartfelt goodbyes as we promised each other to keep in touch, and then three weeks into college you vanished. "

Cat hung her head in shame, feeling hot tears pricking her eyes again. "Do you know how many times I called you, thinking something bad had happened to you?" Every time he started a new sentence, his voice got a bit louder and angrier. "At first, I thought your phone had died. Then I thought you dropped it in the toilet again. And then after a week or so, after sending you so many messages and emails and voicemails...my mind moved to worst-case scenarios. I thought you were kidnapped or lost or...dare I say it..." He paused for dramatic effect. "Dead."

That last bitter word, dripping off the tip of Robbie's tongue like venom, hit Cat hard and she gasped, squeezing her eyes shut. Deep inside, she knew she deserved to be reprimanded like this. And as much as she hated being yelled at, she dealt with the blows the best she could. Robbie continued, his originally-hidden hostility towards her growing by the second. "But never did I think that my best friend, my confidant, the girl that I had a crush on for the longest time and the person whom I trusted with absolutely everything, would suddenly forget that I ever existed."

Cat took in a deep, shuddery breath. "Robbie...it's complicated."

"How in the world could this be complicated, Cat?" he suddenly shouted, slamming his hands against the desk, which finally drove Cat's silent tears into full-blown sobs. "Did the campus-wide popularity get to your head? Did the sight of handsome, cocky, football-playing bastards and peppy cheerleaders with puffy pom-poms that look like cotton candy replace everything that we went through together?"

"The pom-poms are green and blue, not pink!" Cat retorted between sobs.

"I don't fucking care! You deserted me, Cat." His anger finally fizzled out and then all he felt was an overwhelming feeling of hurt, giving him a pang of heartache he hadn't experienced in a while. "You broke my heart and left me to fend for myself in a world where I had no friends."

The expression on his face when Cat looked up made the regret she was feeling even worse; it was exactly like the one he had conveyed when he told her freshman year of high school that his dad had left his family. He walked right up to her and his eyes, directly focused on hers, seemed to peer into her soul. "Why the hell did you do that to me, Cat? What did I ever do to you to deserve to not be a part of your life anymore?"

Too emotionally overwhelmed to answer his questions, Cat shook her head and descended further into hysterics. For a moment, Robbie felt bad. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her like this, but she had to know how he felt about the whole thing. Plus, this was probably Cat just being her typical, overly-sensitive self because he was familiar with her crying over every little bad thing that happened to her.

He waited patiently for her to calm down and stop crying while taking some time for himself for the reality to settle in. He had tried so hard to erase his feelings for her while navigating the ups and downs of being away from home, but for all he knew her arrival was just going to bring them up again. What Cat didn't know is that her ignoring him destroyed him, especially since it happened so soon after he decided to get rid of Rex for good. Her actions hurt him when he was defenseless and no way were past feelings going to do that again to him this time.

He just wouldn't allow it.

When Cat finally gave out one last sniffle and wiped away the moisture below her eyes, Robbie handed her a tissue. "Thanks," she mumbled and blew her nose daintily. After she was finished, he looked at her expectantly, waiting for an explanation. "I know you want answers, Robbie, and I understand that. What I did to you was awful and unacceptable, I'm well aware. But you're not the only one who has been through a lot lately. I can't tell you everything right now-"

"You can't or you won't?" he inquired, frustrated.

"I'm choosing not to right now. It's too soon and I don't want to freak you out."

She sighed, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them close to her. "The only thing I will tell you is that my life is falling apart. I flunked my first year of college, I quit the sorority I was in, and I was put on anti-depressants as soon as I came back to school this year."

Robbie's anger did not fade but her words concerned him. Given that Cat was a perfectionist and a socialite at Hollywood Arts, this behavior was very unlike her. "Didn't the medicine help at all?"

"Not really. That's why I came to you."

Robbie sighed. "Cat, you know I'm not a doctor, right?"

"No, that's not what I meant!" She hopped off of his desk and walked up to him so they were only a few feet away from each other. "I came to you because right now, you're the only person I can trust," she explained softly, color briefly rising in her cheeks as she looked him in the eyes for the first time that night.

Floored by her tenderness, Robbie didn't respond right away. "Wow. Um...thanks for thinking of me like that. I appreciate it," he mumbled, breaking away from their close proximity before he got caught in a trance.

He ambled over to his bed to check the time on his phone- 2:30 am. Shit. All of this drama made him forget how late at night it was. Was she planning on staying the night or something? He wouldn't mind that too much since Mitch was out partying in a friend's room and would most likely spend the night there, but that also meant that he would have to alert his friends about his overnight guest- and with a girl as attractive as Cat, lord knew how much crap he would get from his friends and his girlfriend about it.

He was about to say something to Cat about it, but he noticed her shivering before he could say anything. "You need to get out of those wet clothes, Cat. The heat will probably come on in about an hour or so, but until then you're going to freeze to death."

Cat's eyes bugged. "But I don't have any clothes to change into."

"Don't worry, I have some in my closet that you can use." Robbie handed her a purple tank top and a pair of plaid pajama shorts that he had fished out of a cardboard box in his closet. "Use these. We'll lay out your damp clothes tonight so they'll be dry by tomorrow."

She looked at the clothes in her hands, confused. "Where did you get these?" Her eyes widened and she gasped. "Are you...'experimenting' again?"

Robbie groaned inwardly. "No, I stopped that when I was twelve! They're Gabby's clothes. She has a tendency to leave stuff in my room every once in a while."

"Is she your girlfriend?" Cat asked innocently, even though she could feel a faint pang of... jealousy?... in the pit of her stomach.

"She is. She went to Hollywood Arts with us too, actually. I think you may have met her once or twice."

Cat froze. She knew she had recognized that name for some reason. "Hold on...you mean Gabriella? The girl you went to the Cow Wow with? I didn't know you two were going to the same college."

"Well maybe I would've told you if we were still in communication for the past year," Robbie said matter-of-factly, trying not to snap at her. Reminded of her wrongdoing, Cat held her tongue. She decided that she would question him more about Gabriella later. "So...are you planning on sleeping over or something?"

Immediately, Cat felt guilty. She should've known better than to drive three hours in the middle of the night only to disturb Robbie's sleep and cause a commotion. "I-I don't know," she stuttered. "I don't know what I was thinking, I didn't pack anything or even think of a plan to go home and I really, really don't want to go back to Bakersfield, I can't go back-"

The fear of going back there took complete control of her and she started hyperventilating, hastily grabbing the metal rail of the small ladder hooked to Robbie's bed. More than a bit worried by her reaction, Robbie rushed over to her and rubbed her shoulders gently. "Sssh, Kitty, you're going to be fine," he murmured in her ear, and his pet name for her made Cat perk up. "Just stay the night and we'll figure everything out in the morning." By now it was clear to Robbie that something was definitely troubling Cat and although he wasn't a big fan of her at the moment, he couldn't say no to someone who was in need of help.

"O-o-okay," she gasped, her breath gradually slowing down. "I'm so sorry for all of this, Robbie, I didn't mean to barge in on you and disturb your sleep and everything. I just don't know what to do," she wailed.

"I'm not ready to forgive you for you what you did, but you came to me for help and I'm going to help you," he replied with determination. "Don't ever feel bad about asking for help."

A half-smile appeared on Cat's swollen face. "Fair enough. Thanks."

"I don't have an air mattress for you to use, unfortunately, but I can give you some pillows and blankets to lay on for the night."

"I don't care, anything will do," she said quickly, not wanting to bother him anymore.

As Robbie set up a space for her to sleep on the floor, Cat yawned and changed in Robbie's closet into the clothes he gave her while he went to the bathroom. She caught a whiff of something and grimaced. _Ugh, jasmine. _Of course Robbie's girlfriend wore a perfume consisting of one of the only scents she couldn't stand. She pulled back her semi-dry, frizzy red hair with a thin ponytail that was on her wrist before exiting the closet and flopping onto the makeshift bed Robbie had made.

Her original plan was to wait for Robbie to come back before falling asleep, but weariness and exhaustion, the products of months of nightmares and unwanted insomnia, soon washed over her. And by the time Robbie came back from the bathroom, she had drifted off into a deep but torturous sleep.

* * *

_Splash, splash_

The cold water dripped off of Robbie's face as he desperately tried to calm himself down. He had managed to remain somewhat reasonable and cool while he was around Cat, but now the nostalgia and mixed feelings were slamming into him full-force. The childhood memories they made together, the hard times in which they supported each other when no one else would, the "harmless" kisses (both platonic and romantic) and innocent flirting, and lastly the friend-zoning...everything just engulfed him like a tsunami does to an entire village.

"Breathe, Robbie, breathe," he told himself. He had a new life now, a life in which he had a mom who loved him with all her heart, friends that actually wanted to hang out with him on a daily basis, and a girl that genuinely liked him, nerdiness and all. And the majority of these things were missing from his life not too long ago. It took a few times chanting those facts in his head for him to fully accept the situation he now found himself stuck in.

He knew deep down inside that the betrayal he felt towards her could never completely mask the fact that his feelings for her never faded completely, but there was no way he would ever admit that to anyone, not even himself. And certainly not to Gabriella, whom he loved with all his heart.

This was a test the world was giving him, he rationalized- a test to see if he was able to move on from his past and make a new, more emotionally-satisfying life for himself. And he was determined as hell not to get sucked into the drama that was Cat Valentine again.

Robbie stumbled back to his room, his body begging him to go back to sleep and forget the whole ordeal even happened. He noticed that Cat was asleep but didn't pay much attention to it. He turned off the lights, letting the faint dim of his glow-in-the-dark star stickers illuminate his bed in a faint, green light. A small nightlight also shed a calm, dim near his closet, casting shadows on the walls. _Finally, some peace and quiet._

He was halfway up his ladder to his bed when he heard the whimpering noises. He looked over to see Cat trembling underneath the covers, intense enough to see visually from afar. She was definitely asleep, he could see that, but it looked like she was stuck in a living hell. Her face was pained and her fingers were rigid as she dug her fingers into the pillows below her, like she was clawing at them. With a sickening fascination, he observed her giving out a soft moan, followed by a couple of "No!" exclamations, and then she was out again, her breathing returning to a normal rate from the rapid, gasping one it was at before.

He crawled into bed and found it hard to fall back asleep. Something was bothering him, although it was something different than what he had experienced in the bathroom before. Cat used to sleep like a rock- almost nothing could wake her up. He learned that from naps they took together as children and when she fell asleep during movies when she was super tired. But seeing her in such a subconscious state of terror like that... It frightened him.

This was definitely not the sweet, happy-go-lucky, carefree Cat he knew years ago. And the worst part, the part that ravaged the rest of his sleep...What if she couldn't be helped?


End file.
